Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Moe Berg-Keeping an Eye on Things

When baseball greats Babe Ruth and
Lou Gehrigwent on tour in baseball-crazy
Japan,in 1934, some fans wondered why athird-string catcher named Moe Berg
was included.
Although he
played with
five
major-league
teams, from
1923 to 1939,
he was a very
mediocre ball
player. But
Moe was
regarded as
the brainiestballplayer of all time. In fact,Casey Stengel once said: "That is
the strangest
man ever to
playbaseball".

When all the baseball stars went to
Japan, MoeBerg went with them and many people
wondered why
he went with
"theteam"

LouGehrig and Babe Ruth

The answer was simple: Moe Berg was
a United
Statesspy, working undercover with the
Office of
Strategic
Services
(predecessor
of today's
CIA).

Moe spoke 15 languages - including
Japanese. And
he had twoloves: baseball and spying.

In Tokyo, garbed in a kimono, Berg
took flowers
to the
daughter of an
American
diplomat being
treated in St.
Luke's
Hospital - the
tallest
building in
the Japanese
capital.

He never delivered the flowers. The
ball playerascended to the hospital roof and
filmed key
features: the
harbor,
military
installations,
railway yards,
etc.

Eight years later, General Jimmy
Doolittle
studied Berg's
films in
planning his
spectacular
raid on Tokyo.

His father disapproved and never
once watched
his sonplay. In Barringer High School, Moe
learnedLatin,Greek and French. Moe read at least
10 newspapers
every day.

He graduated magna cum laude from
Princeton
having addedSpanish,Italian,German and Sanskrit
to his
linguistic
quiver. During
further
studies at theSorbonne, in Paris, and Columbia
Law School, he
picked up
Japanese,Chinese,Korean, Indian,
Arabic,
Portuguese and
Hungarian - 15
languages in
all, plus some
regional
dialects.

While playing baseball for
Princeton
University,
Moe Berg would
describe plays
in Latin or
Sanskrit.

Tito'spartisans

During World War II, Moe was
parachuted
into
Yugoslavia toassess the value to the war effort
of the two
groups of
partisans
there. He
reported back
thatMarshall Tito's forces were widely
supported by
the people and
Winston
Churchill
ordered
all-out
supportfor the Yugoslav underground
fighter,
rather than
Mihajlovic's
Serbians.

The parachute jump at age 41
undoubtedly
was a
challenge.Butthere was more to come in that same
year. Berg
penetrated
German-held
Norway, met
with members
of theunderground, and located a secret
heavy-water
plant - part
of the Nazis'
effort to
build an
atomic bomb.

His information guided the Royal
Air Force in a
bombingraidto destroy that plant.

There still remained the question
of how far had
theNazis
progressedin the race to build the first
Atomic bomb.
If the Nazis
were
successful,
they would win
the war. Berg(under the code name "Remus") was
sent to
Switzerland to
hear leading
German
physicist
Werner
Heisenberg, a
NobelLaureate, lecture and determine if
the Nazis were
close to
building an
A-bomb. Moe
managed to
slip past the
SS guardsat the auditorium, posing as a
Swiss graduate
student. The
spy carried in
his pocket a
pistol and a
cyanide pill.

If the German physicist indicated
the Nazis were
close to
building aweapon, Berg was to shoot him - and
then swallow
the cyanide
pill.

Moe,
sitting in the
front row,
determinedthat the Germans were nowhere near
their goal, so
he
complimented
Heisenberg on
his speech and
walked himback to his hotel.

WernerHeisenberg - he blocked theNazis from acquiring an

atomic bomb.

Moe Berg's report was distributed
to Britain's
Prime MinisterWinston Churchill, President
Franklin D.
Roosevelt, and
key figures in
the team
developing the
Atomic Bomb.
Roosevelt
responded:
"Give my
regards to the
catcher.”;

Most of Germany's leading
physicists had
been Jewish
and had fled
the Nazis
mainly to
Britain and
the United
States. After
the war, Moe
Berg was
awarded the
Medal of
Freedom -
America 'shighest honor for a civilian in
wartime. But
Berg refused
to accept itbecause he couldn't tellpeople about his exploits.

After his death, his sister
accepted the
Medal. It now
hangsin the Baseball Hall of Fame, in
Cooperstown.

PresidentialMedal of Freedom: the highest award

given to civilians during wartime.

Moe Berg's baseball card is the
only card on
display at theCIA
Headquartersin
Washington,
DC.